The valley we lived in could easily be the setting for a fantasy novel or a prairie western novel. It could be anything.

Most authors would love to see their characters made for the screen, especially one that's quite colourful.

People tell me how great it must have been to ride horses and stuff. Well, do it for two days straight on dusty days when the cows and horses were really tired.

As a child, I spent a lot of time wandering around the prairies and in the hills, and there was a sense that it was such a wide-open space, and there was kind of a feeling of potential. I could imagine anything happening there.

My father was a man of great charity towards the poor, and compassion for the sick, and also for servants; so much so, that he never could be persuaded to keep slaves, for he pitied them so much: and a slave belonging to one of his brothers being once in his house, was treated by him with as much tenderness as his own children.

We always performed for our church, but we also just performed whenever the family got together.

I do believe at the end of the night when you're with your family, the character gets hung up on the door like a coat, and is there to be taken on the next morning.

If you read a book about school - someone else's book - you always translate it into your own school experiences. It's describing the student: he's bewildered and lost in a large crowd in a university classroom. You'll visualize that from your own experiences. So, everything you know is what you're really writing.